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Metadata only record ; This paper looks at the relevance and contributions of social capital analysis to human geography and vise versa. The authors start by defining social capital and clarifying and distinguishing concepts, and critiques of Putnam's work. Social capital is simultaneously an economic, sociological, political, and geographical concept, but it must be distinguished from human capital, cultural capital, and networks. Social capital can be relevant to human geographers because of the focus on the relationship between locality and the 'emergent casual power'. Social capital in not reproduced nor is it fixed to a place (it is the interaction between agency and structure). The geography of social capital exists in the: 1) Compositional effects produce spatial variations. 2) Participation varies with location. 3) Voluntary sector develops unevenly. 4) Institutional structures can influence formation of social capital which can affect levels of participation. 5) Uneven development are likely to have an impact on the quality of social relationships and, therefore, on levels of social capital. The challenge now rests in developing spatially disaggregated indicators of social capital. Obtaining disaggregated data on dimensions of social capital is difficult whether one measures participation or trust. Still, social capital is used in explaining economic growth and uneven development. It might be relevant to explain intrastate patterns of uneven development, in understanding effectiveness of government institutions, and health inequalities. Change have moved towards multiple stakeholders approaches involving partnerships between state, private capital and civil society, this so called the "third way" has have placed the focus on social networks and social capital, but the paper cautions us of the dangers of uncritical application of concepts.

Japanese society is often said to be one with a high premium on social capital. Two major theses have been put forward with regard to social capital in the last few years. One, advanced by Putnam (1993), is that social capital enables democracy to work. In other words, the historically acquired and accumulated social capital in terms of the propensity of individuals to engage with others in community and associational life facilitates the task of democratically working out the resolution of conflicts of interest and collectively producing good public policy. The other, advanced by Fukuyama (1995), postulates that social capital allows the creation of prosperity. In other words, a high level of social capital enables business firms to take risks and stretch networks fully in the creation of wealth on a large scale for a prolonged period of time.

"What is 'social capital'? The enormous positivity surrounding it conceals the instrumental economic rationality underpinning the notion as corporations silently sell consumer data for profit. Status chasing is just one aspect of a process of transforming qualitative aspects of social interactions into quantifiable metrics for easier processing, prediction, and behavioural shaping. A work of critical media studies, Social Capital Online examines the idea within the new 'network spectacle' of digital capitalism via the ideas of Marx, Veblen, Debord, Baudrillard and Deleuze. Explaining how such phenomena as online narcissism and aggression arise, Faucher offers a new theoretical understanding of how the spectacularisation of online activity perfectly aligns with the value system of neoliberalism and its data worship. Even so, at the centre of all, lie familiar ideas – alienation and accumulation – new conceptions of which he argues are vital for understanding today's digital society."